Bitter comments from Globe haters aside, this round cuts even deeper into the muscle of a newspaper that could once proclaim itself among the nation's elite. The impact of the previous cuts can be found in a drastically smaller news hole, the demise of the national desk and all foreign bureaus and a brain drain that has robbed the newspaper of its institutional memory.

The Wall Street attack mirrors the ones that eliminated the once-esteemed Knight-Ridder chain, weakened the Los Angeles Times and driven more and more news consumers to the web instead of dead tree versions of the papers.

In the case of the New York Times Co., the focus of the "savings" has fallen heavily on the New England division, which includes the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Part of the problem in New England is consolidation in other sectors. Remember Jordan Marsh and Filene's? Their advertising clout is a distant memory.

I fear the constant cost-cutting is starting to represent a death spiral: eliminate staff to make up for lost advertising revenues, shrinking the news hole and experience level of the reporters filling it, and so on and so on.

What's even more frightening is the lack of alternatives to the penny Pinching.

2 Comments:

Fantastic blog! So many of the problems we've all discussed in the blogosphere are exacerbated by the NYTimes treatment of the Globe. If it had more funds, perhaps we wouldn't see so many hack stories? The NY Times should learn from its mistakes and sell off its subsidiaries, preferably to local owners. From here on out, newspapers should avoid being publically held companies too. In the never-ending quest to have super profit margins for stock holders, very profitable companies are making a mockery of themselves. How much profit does one need to make?

A lot of companies are switching to being privately held for that very reason, newspapers being one of them.